Colorado ranks high for drop in uninsured after Affordable Care Act

Despite drastically varying estimates of the percentage of private health insurance enrollees who previously were uninsured, a new report might shed some light on the number of Coloradans who gained coverage after the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Colorado ranked No. 11 out of the 43 states and District of Columbia analyzed in WalletHub's 2014 Health Insurance Coverage report, which was released Wednesday.

The number of uninsured Colorado residents dropped by 7.52 percent post-ACA, according to the report, which looked at the change in the rate of uninsured after the ACA was enacted.

Statewide, 16.54 percent of Coloradans were uninsured before the ACA was enacted, which dropped to 9.02 percent post-ACA. And 125,402 individuals enrolled in private health insurance plans under ACA, with a total of 263,452 enrolling in Medicaid between summer 2013 and April 2014.

Nationally, 14.22 percent were uninsured post-ACA, according to the report.

"After reviewing the methodologies of these conflicting studies, we believe the Kaiser Family Foundation’s estimate — of 57 percent — to be the most accurate, given that it is based on a probabilistic, nationally representative sample and spans the appropriate time period," said the WalletHub researchers.

That estimate varies significantly from those determined by other organizations, such as:

RAND Corp., a nonprofit global think tank, which estimated that 28 percent of new enrollees were previously covered;

McKinsey & Company, a global consulting firm based in New York, which estimated them at 36 percent; and

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which puts the number at 87 percent.

Under those estimates, the percentage of uninsured Coloradans would vary from 9.02 percent to:

RAND: 9.84 percent.

McKinsey: 9.61 percent.

HHS: 8.18 percent.

The study also looked at the average uninsured rate in states that did and did not expand Medicaid. It found that nationwide 23.29 percent of people under 64 are on Medicaid, and primarily-Democratic states had fewer uninsured residents, at 15.90 percent, compared to 28.52 percent in Republican states.

Study author Timothy Jost, a professor at the Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Virgina, said the failure of many states to adopt Medicaid is the biggest obstacle the ACA faces.

"The technical challenge of making the exchanges full operational, and the difficulty of educating the public as to the availability of coverage, are also challenges, at least in the short run," he added.